


Familial Doubts

by migratorycat



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Discussion, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/migratorycat/pseuds/migratorycat
Summary: Talking with Nick one night on the way back from a gruesome job, the Sole Survivor admits something about herself - and her child - that she'd kept locked away for a long time.Intended to be part of hers and Nick's developing relationship, but could easily be interpreted as platonic.
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Nick Valentine, Sole Survivor/Nick Valentine
Kudos: 33





	Familial Doubts

There was the strangest thing about the nighttime post-apocalyptic Commonwealth sky - it seemed hazy, alight with the tiniest glow that seemed almost thicker than moonlight or starlight. It was much the same as the slick glow of a wet wound scabbing over. Hot and pained and slightly seeping, and a long, long way to go before healing could begin.

The sickly glow of the night dwarfed the tiny, dim lantern that sectioned our camp in a little run-down shell of a tool shed off from the darkness. The runaway kid slept curled up in one corner with her back against a crumbled wall, almost as still as death. Nick and I sat with our backs against wall posts opposite one another, each keeping watch past the other's shoulder. Wind whispered away the silence.

"Go on," Nick said again. "Get some sleep. I can keep watch just fine, you know that."

I huffed an exasperated sigh and almost rolled my eyes. "Nick! Look, I don't want to sleep. How could anyone want to sleep after seeing that?" Mentioning it put the images back in my head, of course. Little bodies. Huge, jagged knives. Pieces everywhere. This girl, hiding, huddled in a bloody corner behind the piles, eyes wide open but not seeing anything except for the terrors in her memories.

"I see," Nick said darkly. "You could have told me so earlier."

"I didn't want to think about it."

"Right. I know the feeling. Really, I do."

I had no response to that.

"You gonna be alright?"

I shrugged and hugged myself, pointedly looking away to hide a rogue tear making a break for my eyelashes. We sat in silence for a while. I got myself back under control but couldn't shake this despairing feeling - something between anger and hopelessness.

"I don't understand how people keep having kids in this..." A gesture around me, sweeping over the desolate wasteland, captured what I meant.

Nick grinned. "Well, you see - when a mom and a dad love each other very much..."

In spite of myself, I smiled. And shot him a glance full of affectionate reproach. That earned a chuckle out of him.

"You know, I asked myself the same thing at first," he began again. "Early on after I woke up, I couldn't understand how anyone could go on in a world like this one, let alone start a family, bring up kids. But..."

He paused for thought, and I waited patiently. "Well, here's the thing about people. The whole world can come falling down on their heads, everything around them can change forever - but they won't. People are always going to meet other people and fall in love, and want to start families together. Or -" he cleared his throat - "at least take a nice friendly tumble in the bushes and make an accident happen."

I laughed - a little louder than was warranted - and Nick stopped and gave me a quizzical look.

"It's nothing," I said, smiling and waving it off. "That's just - it's funny. That's how I got pregnant with Shaun."

"Oh!" Nick's eyes went wide and, had he been flesh and blood, I was sure he would have been blushing - as least a little. His voice dipped lower - it always did when he was embarrassed - and he immediately spilled into polite apologies, he didn't mean to imply anything unsavory, he hoped he hadn't offended, and on. For the sake of the sleeping child nearby, I had to cover up my laughter as I assured him repeatedly that I wasn't offended in the slightest. Successfully reassured, Nick continued.

"Anyway, well. What I'm meaning to say and all is that for most folks, settling down somewhere, starting a family... that's what they'd say makes living good and right and normal. Not to say that there's a problem otherwise, but - I think you get my meaning. People go on. It's just what people do and the end of the world won't stop 'em one bit."

I wasn't really listening. My eyes hadn't left the girl sleeping soundly in the corner, and that sinking, bitter feeling had crept its way back into me.

"I never really wanted a baby," I said suddenly.

For a moment there was only the sound of the wind's whispers. Then Nick asked, "Is that so?"

It took me a long time to find the words. I had to drag them out of the shadow of my heart where I'd hidden them, hoping I'd never ever have to bring them out ever again. Such lies we tell ourselves, when we try to bury the things that hurt us deeply.

"Nate and I had been married a few years," I said. "We were in that second honeymoon stage, you know - there's the first honeymoon stage on your actual honeymoon and a little afterwards, and then the two of you sober up and go through a spot of trouble that you can't just kiss away, and then you fall in love all over again and it's like a second honeymoon." I took a few breaths. "We didn't want kids when we got married. He told me he didn't want kids. Then we fell in love again - right when the country started really going to hell - and suddenly he can't get enough of the idea. He wants a little boy who'll grow up strong and be a military man like him, or a beautiful daughter that'll be smarter than the both of us. I didn't want it - I just wanted to be with him. Well, one day we went to the park for a romantic picnic and we had a -" I paused to laugh, though my voice faltered - "a nice friendly tumble in the bushes and the next thing I know I'm getting positive pregnancy tests and my doctor is telling me to quit my birth control."

I paused to breathe, finding that I needed to more than I had thought. Nick didn't say a thing.

"I still didn't want a baby," I continued eventually. "I really didn't. But Nate seemed so happy. Within a week of getting the news, he had a crib built and painted. He convinced me. I wanted him to be happy and I was so in love all over again that I just..." I looked down at my hands and saw them trembling. "I just... threw myself into it. I made myself the best goddamn housekeeper and mother and happy loving wife there could be. I was straight out of an Abraxo commercial."

I looked up. Nick wore a thoughtful expression. I could see him processing everything I was saying. I was processing it, too.

"The bombs killed it," I said. "The bombs were one thing. But when I stepped out of the vault and saw the world, I snapped out of it. I think I snapped out of everything. I just... changed. It changed me. And now..."

I trailed off, my thoughts scattering before something that I didn't want to face. I kept trying, but my brain turned me away over and over, even though I got closer each time. Silence engulfed our little camp as the wind died and the night went still. Nick said nothing. When I finally had that taboo thought in my grasp, when I finally thought it out in plain English and said the words in my head, the hurt was like a punch to the gut. I cringed, looking down as if some monstrous figure were looming over me.

"If," I tried to start, and had to blink back tears, "if they took him when he was a baby but now he's 'older than I expect', then... then he's been raised by someone else. I'm not his mom anymore. He already has a mom and dad who raised him and I'm the stranger. He's not my son." I swallowed a sob. "He has a mother and father who wanted him so much that they stole him away from me and probably did a better job raising him than I would have. I didn't even want him! I pretended!" I reached up to scrub tears from my face. "Am I a terrible person for pretending? Am I a terrible person for even wondering whether I should be glad that someone took him off my hands? Am I a terrible person for wondering if I should stop looking for him?"

It was the first time I had ever consciously asked those questions. I didn't want Nick to answer me; I wanted to stop being so conflicted. I wanted to be able to give myself a definite answer. And I couldn't. The pain of it tore me apart.

Hard arms wrapped awkwardly around me, and I let them pull me into a lean.

"For however much it's worth," I heard Nick say, "I don't think you're a bad person. I don't think that at all."

His covered hand soothed me with little strokes, and I can't say how much longer I cried.


End file.
